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Though this is no comment of how much it cost to produce or acquire them, this week we publish lists of the leading sires of 2017 ABC Runners at the midyear point. As mentioned, it's important to realize that Midyear earnings thresholds are only around 65% of the year-end earnings thresholds, so it is possible--even likely--that some horses which are A Runners at Midyear will not have any more earnings, so could slip to B or even in a few cases C Runners. But, having said that, they can only...

It's not that often that sire sensations appear, so for Juddmonte's Frankel (Galileo) to streak away from his fellow F2014 (first foals 2014) (click here for tables) North American and European sires the same way Coolmore's Uncle Mo (Indian Charlie) did among F2013 sires last year (click here for tables) is unusual: two prospective 'World Top Five' stallions in successive years. Mind you, it is true the stallion ranks are thinning: a total of 715 sires in North America, Europe, and Japan were assigned APEX ratings in our Midyear 2017 ratings, a...

The Coolmore team has been floating the idea for a few years now that Galileo (Ire) might be an even better sire than their 14-time British and Irish champion sire, Sadler's Wells. It's hard to know precisely how to assess this, since during his reign Sadler's Wells averaged around 100 foals per crop, significantly higher than his contemporaries, while Galileo's crops have averaged nearly 50% more than even Sadler's Wells's, which makes ratings based on percentages even harder to read. For sure the one area in which Galileo has proven...

It's been pretty hot down south so far in 2017, literally as well as figuratively. It's been a while since we turned the APEX focus to the Southern Hemisphere, so it seems like a good time to take a fresh look. As always, The Jockey Club Information Systems (TJCIS) has supplied the APEX numbers as well as other data; just a quick side note is that the "1st Fls" year listed is whenever TJCIS first had registered foals reported, and for these lists we have not tried to sort out...

One of the main objectives of APEX ratings is to describe 'the frequency with which' sires get runners which rank in certain percentile groups of earners in a calendar year or racing season: 'A Runners' rank in the top 2%; 'B Runners' in the next 2%; 'C Runners' in the next 4%; and therefore 'ABC Runners' comprise the top 8% of earners, in a given racing jurisdiction (for example, 'North America'), in a racing year (click here for a detailed explanation of APEX ratings). For 'A Runners', the index scale...

Coolmore's Galileo, who must now rank as one of the all-time great sires, now has his 11th crop of 3-year-olds racing. At a time when many sires of his age are commencing to fade, Galileo might be stronger than ever; at least that's what the new run of the Midyear 2016 APEX figures suggest. Covering 6 1/2 years of racing in North America, 'Europe' (Britain [for now], Ireland, France, and Germany), and Japan, from the beginning of 2010 through July 11, Galileo has surged clear of even Claiborne's War Front...

APEX (Annual Progeny Earnings indeX) ratings are based on the percentage of runners which achieve certain earnings thresholds, which means sires with the highest number of runners are usually at a disadvantage when evaluated by this type of measurement. So the enormity of the achievement by Coolmore's flagship sire, Galileo, in scoring the highest A Runner Index (4.09) for a North American or European sire with 200+ year-starters, and for the second year running, cannot be overstated. With 1,945 year-starters in the seven-year period 2009-2015, he is second in that...

Through racing of July 5, when we ran the Midyear APEX data, a North American racehorse needed to have earned just over $40,000 thus far in 2015 to qualify as a Midyear 'C Runner', and just over $83,000 to qualify as a Midyear 'A Runner'; you can see the amounts (converted to US$) for the other jurisdictions in the accompanying table. These are the top 8% of runners in 2015 after the July 4 weekend; if you take the view that $40,000 in earnings is maybe a little better than...

Last week we took a look at the Top 50 North American and European sires by APEX A Runner Index (click here), using new Midyear 2015 data, meaning from 1/1/2009 through 7/5/2015. A particular note about this, if you will refer to the table on page five of last Wednesday's paper, is that the earnings thresholds are based on racing through that date. Thus, the 2% A Runner threshold calculated on July 5 was, for example, $83,084 in North America. The 2014 year-end threshold was $134,655. Therefore, it is highly...

At the end of 2014, Coolmore's Galileo had finally ascended to the top of the list of North American and European sires by A Runner Index, with a 4.09 rating (8.18% of his 1,822 year-starters 2008-2014), just slightly ahead of Claiborne's War Front (4.02). Now, halfway through 2015, War Front (3.98) has edged ahead of Galileo (3.93), who is actually tied for second with Spendthrift's Into Mischief (3.93), among 459 North American and European sires with 175+ year-starters 2009-2015. Because APEX (Annual Progeny Earnings IndeX) ratings, like the average-earnings index,...

By Bill Oppenheim It's been a hard road to the top of the APEX charts for Coolmore's Galileo, the consensus world number one. It's one thing to be the top sire in North America and Europe by progeny earnings on the TDN General Sire List three straight years (2012-2014), while siring 60-some black-type horses a year, but it's quite another to also be the top sire by indexes calculated using numbers of runners. The APEX A Runner Index is calculated using the percentage of a sire's runners which achieve certain earnings...

When you see that Coolmore=s top sire, Galileo, had 66 black-type horses (BTH) last year, of which 50 were graded/group stakes horses (GSH), it's not surprising he's also the leading 2014 North American or European sire of APEX ABC Runners. To review, a horse becomes an ABC Runner (meaning A Runner, or B Runner, or C Runner) by recording earnings among the top 8% of runners, in the year, in one of the five jurisdictions in which earnings are tallied: North America (US + Canada); Great Britain/Ireland (traditionally collected together...